Optical super resolution using tilted illumination coupled with object rotation

In conventional imaging systems, the resolution of the final image is mainly distorted due to diffraction of higher spatial frequencies of the target object. To overcome the diffraction limit, imaging techniques which synthetically enlarge the aperture of the system are used. In this paper, synthesized aperture is produced by means of a three fiber illumination assembly coupled with an in-plane object rotation. The high order diffracted spatial frequencies of the object are brought into the pass band of optical system by illuminating the object with tilted beams. The tilt produced at the fiber assembly plane is related to the dimension of the aperture, placed at the Fourier plane of the system. To span the 2D object spectrum at the Fourier plane, an in-plane object rotation procedure is applied at the object plane. The spectrum of the object is rotated as the object is rotated and illuminated with tilted beams. The corresponding object beam is interfered with a reference beam from the same source to record interferograms. All the recorded interferograms are stored in computer and de-convolution algorithm is applied to recover the synthesized spectrum. The image of the synthesized spectrum has three times improved resolution compared to the conventional image.